June 5, 2007
The Jay Leno Diet
iVillage: The Weighting Game with Leslie
People eat more when they watch TV – we all know that. But according to a new study by Dr. Alan Hirsch, neurological director of Chicago’s Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, it seems that who you tune into late-night can impact not only your belly laughing, but your actual belly.
Hirsch set out to explore the impact of television on eating behaviors by measuring potato chip consumption during the evening talk shows. What he found: volunteers munched through an average of 44 percent more chips while watching David Letterman’s monologue and 42 percent more during Jay Leno’s, versus watching no TV at all. Personally, Leno gives me the heeby-jeebies, so this is just one more reason to not tune in. But Dave? Say it ain’t so! Maybe I’ll have to switch to Conan.
(BTW, Dr. Hirsch is the same expert who told the world that the scents of lavender mixed with pumpkin pie produces the greatest sexual arousal in males. For women, it’s Good & Plenty plus cucumbers…this offers up so many potential jokes, I won’t even go there.)
In other “battle of the bulge” news, ePocrates has announced the results of their “2007 Obesity Report” - a nationwide survey of physicians which revealed doctors consider obesity to be the single largest public health crisis in the nation. (ePocrates develops mobile and web-based patient safety products for doctors.) This isn’t a huge shock – obesity has so many ties to diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and more that it’s bound to be a top priority – but I found some of the additional survey highlights really interesting, like the fact that 88% of physicians surveyed feel that more than 30% of their peers are clinically overweight, even when each understands the consequences; and 93% of physicians ranked Weight Watchers® as the best weight loss program, followed by The South Beach Diet™.
So I guess today’s take-home messages are: Lock up the chips, skip the Leno monologue, pick a doctor who’s in good health him/herself and, if you’re hungry for a little lovin’, hide a pumpkin pie under your pillow, spritz on some lavender sheet spray and get busy.
View "The Jay Leno Diet" article.
CONTACT: Erica Sniad Morgenstern Epocrates Public Relations PHONE: (650) 227-6907 E-MAIL: pr@epocrates.com WEB: www.epocrates.com